Spring Time and a Poem

March 20, 2014, 16:57 UTC is the Vernal Equinox - Spring. What this means is the sun is returning to the northern hemisphere. Well, it never left the northern hemisphere, but the position of the sun relative to our planet is above the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the imaginary plane that extends from the equator out into space. When the sun's equator and Mother Earth's equator are on the same plane, that is called an Equinox. The vernal equinox means the sun appears to travel north, and above the ecliptic. OK, so that is what it means in physical terms.

(Thank you, NOAA)

What does it mean to humans? South of the equator, it means the weather will begin to get cooler and time is marching toward another winter. In the north, especially in the United States, and probably Canada, it means Easter is coming, Mother's Day is coming, garden planning (if your local shadow government allows that), getting the decorative lawn to green up, cleaning out out junk from our houses and cars ... it is a time of renewal.

It also means some nasty weather. In the American mid-west, and in the past few years most of the eastern states, the volatility of moist heat welling up from the Gulf of Mexico clashing with cool, dense air over the plains east of the Rockies results in violent, but beautiful storms. These have been occurring for millenia, but since humans have put cities and towns in the path of those storms, they have become very costly in loss of life and property. I do not know what to expect this year. The Weather Channel says that the number of tornadic storms for March 2014 are below average (http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-central/severe-weather-tracker-page). Last year, March was also a bit below average, but April & May made up for that.

Any way, as Spring enters, I offer this from famed poet Robert Frost:

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.